Tips & advice

With Black Hat 2014 in full swing in Las Vegas, it was never going to be a quiet week - but revelations about FBI malware and a trove of a billion passwords inspired furious debate too.

Yet another “connected” device was outed as a potential spy this week - as researchers showed how Google’s Nest thermostat could be turned into a “fully-fledged spying device”.

The privacy and security of medical records is a matter of concern to many Americans now that most are now stored electronically, but is there cause for concern? And who is most concerned?

Today’s fashion for high-end electronics in luxury hotels allowed a hacker to wreak havoc in 200 suites at once in a five-star hotel in China - switching off lights, changing the TV channel, raising blinds and fiddling with the temperature.

For several years, FBI agents have been taking an unusual approach to detective work online - using malware against suspects who have not been proven guilty, just visited the wrong Tor site.

Somewhere in a small city in south central Russia, a group of men in their twenties have got away with what some are describing as one of the biggest cyber-heists in history.

Cybercriminals are waging a game of ‘cat and mouse’ with corporations, well-armed with malware protection AV software but facing adversaries who scan constantly for weak points, according to the first quarterly report released by the UK’s new Computer Emergency Response Team.

Since a recent claim researchers could “uncloak” Tor users for less than $3,000, there has been a flurry of activity in the “anonymous” online service - but in the form of new adverts, new markets, and new security.

After a technical error on a Mozilla database, thousands of email addresses and encrypted passwords were exposed for nearly a month - leaving 78,000 Mozilla app developers vulnerable to hackers.